Riya Sood

Managing expense claims can be one of the most challenging tasks for organisations. Without the right system it becomes slow, error-prone and frustrating. Tuhund ERP solves this problem with a powerful Expense Claims Management Module that automates the process, ensures accountability and delivers accurate data to both management accounting and financial accounting.

Why Tuhund Expense Claims Module is essential

End-to-end automation

Tuhund automates the entire expense claim journey; from raising a claim to approvals and final posting in accounts. There is no manual paperwork or duplication. Claims move seamlessly through workflows saving time and preventing errors.

Built-in approval workflows

Expense claims often need multiple levels of authorisation. Tuhund manages this automatically according to company policies. Line managers, department heads or finance controllers can approve or reject claims instantly with complete visibility and audit trails.

Attachments and images

Receipts, bills or any supporting documents can be uploaded directly with the claim. Users can even capture images from mobile devices. This makes reimbursements fast and reliable with no misplaced papers.

Claims should be raised by the person who incurs the expense

In Tuhund, an expense claim can be raised not only by employees but also by vendors, customers, agents, dealers, partners or any authorised party linked to the system. While accounts can add claims later, this practice is discouraged. The best results come when the person incurring the expense raises the claim directly because:

• Details and purpose are captured accurately

• Proof is attached immediately

• Claims enter approval workflows without delay

• Expenses are linked correctly to quotations, enquiries, invoices, purchases, products, vendors and customers

• Accountability remains clear with a digital trail

Seamless integration with financial accounting

Approved claims automatically update the correct ledgers in financial accounting. This ensures accurate bookkeeping, compliance and tax reporting without additional effort from finance teams.

Strong link with management accounting

Unlike stand-alone systems Tuhund connects expense claims with the core business cycle. Every claim can be mapped to quotations, enquiries, invoices, purchases, products, vendors and customers. Most importantly, Tuhund gives you a true view of per-customer profitability by combining out-of-pocket expenses with the cost of time spent on that customer. Time is converted to financial value using your configured cost of time, so profitability reflects real effort not just payments. You always know how much you are earning from each customer after factoring travel, incidentals, support time and project hours, which drives better pricing, SLA design and account strategy.

Tight integration with Advance Requests

Tuhund also offers an Advance Requests Module for anticipated or planned expenses like travel, projects or events. Anyone linked to the system can request funds in advance. Once the expense claim is submitted it is automatically linked and reconciled with the advance. This avoids duplication, ensures accountability and tracks utilisation of funds end-to-end.

Dedicated analytical reports

In addition to hundreds of reports in financial and management accounting, the Expense Claims Module offers its own analytical reports at the claim level. These provide insights into:

• Expense patterns by project or department

• Recurring claims and trends

• Vendor, customer or agent related claims

• Outstanding advances and settlements

• Policy compliance and exceptions

This helps management identify leakages, enforce discipline and improve cost control with clear, actionable data.

The complete cycle of expense management

With Tuhund ERP, expense management is not just about reimbursements. It covers the full cycle of planning expenses through advance requests, recording claims by the actual claimant, automating approvals, attaching supporting proof, linking to the right business transactions and customers, updating accounts automatically and generating analytical insights.

For organisations that value speed, accuracy and financial control, Tuhund’s Expense Claims Management Module is not optional. It is an essential tool that strengthens compliance, reduces overheads and ensures every penny spent is fully accounted for.

Service request module is often misunderstood as a stand-alone function managed through a ticketing system or a simple CRM add-on. While such tools may capture complaints or requests, they rarely address the real challenge: connecting customer interactions with the business processes that actually solve their issues.

This is where ERP makes all the difference. True customer service is not about logging tickets; it is about giving customers fast, accurate and meaningful responses by linking their queries directly to orders, inventory, logistics, financials and most importantly to a growing database of proven solutions, transparent cost tracking and real-time communication.

Why Stand-Alone Ticketing Systems Fall Short

A typical ticketing or CRM system captures service requests and routes them to agents. But when a customer calls asking:

• “Has my order shipped?”

• “When will my replacement arrive?”

• “Why was I billed twice?”

…the agent must switch between multiple systems—order management, warehouse and accounts—to find answers. This not only slows down resolution but also frustrates customers who expect instant clarity. Worse, even if a solution exists, it may not be documented or accessible to the next agent who faces the same issue.

Tuhund’s Approach – From Tickets to Solutions

In Tuhund, customer service is not an isolated tool. It is deeply embedded into ERP, sharing the same data and processes. Beyond that, Tuhund captures every solution provided to a problem—or even to an opportunity—and builds it into a solution database.

• Each solution entry includes conditions under which it worked, time and material used, staff involvement, comments and even setbacks.

• When a similar issue arises again, the system recalls the past solution along with its complete context.

• The organisation learns continuously, improving efficiency and consistency over time.

Cost and Effort Tracking – Adding Transparency

One of the most powerful aspects of Tuhund’s service management is cost and expense tracking, especially the cost of effort.

• The system records exactly who was involved, how much time each person spent and when.

• It captures other expenses like materials, travel and third-party costs.

• Customers can be kept informed of estimates at the start and actuals at the end, providing full transparency into the resources consumed in resolving their request.

At ECS itself, where Tuhund was born, this transparency has changed the dynamics of customer service. There have been instances where customers, after seeing the actual costs of handling complex service requests, chose to simplify their requirements or even cancel non-essential requests—saving both sides time and effort.

This builds trust and ensures customer service remains sustainable.

Notifications and Digital Interaction

Customer service is also about timely and effective communication—and Tuhund provides a flexible multi-channel notification system that connects both customers and internal staff.

• Event-Based Notifications – For each event in the service lifecycle, notifications can be configured independently for both customers and staff.

• Choice of Mode – Email, SMS, WhatsApp, on-screen alerts or portal updates can be enabled per event.

• Interactive Links – Notifications are not just messages; they contain links that open the relevant service view directly so action can be taken instantly.

• Customer Self-Service – Through the customer portal, service requests can be approved or rejected along with remarks directly via notification links.

• Rich Content – Notifications can carry service job cards and reports which may include photographs, attached files, customer signatures and detailed notes.

This turns customer service into a collaborative real-time process where customers are not passive recipients of updates but active participants in resolving their requests.

Customer Service as a Growth Driver

With Tuhund, customer service evolves far beyond ticket resolution. It becomes a strategic driver of business value:

• Faster, more reliable responses with the solution database.

• Continuous improvement as processes are refined over time.

• Cost visibility and control ensuring service remains sustainable.

• Stronger trust through transparent communication and customer empowerment.

• Real-time collaboration with interactive notifications and portals.

Conclusion

Customer service cannot be truly effective if it is isolated from core business processes—and it cannot be sustainable if the cost of effort remains invisible. It also cannot be engaging if customers are left waiting without transparency or control.

By embedding customer service into ERP, capturing solutions in a growing knowledge base, tracking every cost of effort and enabling two-way communication through configurable notifications and portals, Tuhund delivers a unique combination of speed, intelligence, transparency and collaboration.

Customer service is not just about solving problems. It is about building relationships on efficiency, trust and participation—and that is only possible when ERP and customer service work as one.

We live in a data-driven world — but data alone is not the answer.

Too many businesses confuse raw data dumps with meaningful reports. A giant spreadsheet exported from the system is labeled a “report” and sent to decision-makers, with the expectation that insights will somehow emerge. This is not reporting. It’s delegation of thinking — and a silent growth killer.

Raw Data ≠ Insight

Raw data is just that — raw. It might be accurate, complete, and detailed, but unless it's processed into something meaningful, it doesn’t help you grow.

A real report summarizes, contextualizes, highlights key trends, and tells you:

• What’s working

• What’s not

• What has changed

• And what actions should be taken

If it doesn’t do that, it’s not a report — it’s homework.

When Data Policing Replaces Productivity

In many organizations, there are people who make it their job to compare two different reports from the same dataset just to find mismatches — and raise alarms. They spend hours or even days pointing out what appear to be discrepancies, without understanding why those differences exist.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how reporting works.

Different reports from the same data source are meant to show different things.

The differences are not in the data, but in the perspective, aggregation logic, and filters each report applies. For example:

• A profitability report may exclude internal transfers.

• A tax report may include only billable revenue.

• A monthly summary may round or group values differently than a real-time report.

Only raw exports will match line-for-line — and even then, only if they’re taken at the exact same time.

Misplaced Fault-Finding Is a Growth Trap

When time and energy are spent comparing reports instead of understanding them, businesses get trapped in:

• Endless debates over definitions instead of decisions

• Distrust in the system — often unjustified

• Delays in action due to constant “verification”

This creates a culture of doubt, not discipline.

What Real Reporting Looks Like

Real reports should be:

• Designed with purpose: each one answers a different business question.

• Aligned with context: finance, sales, operations — each has its own lens.

• Smart and actionable: not just accurate, but useful.

The goal is not matching every cell across every screen — the goal is insight.

Tuhund Gets It Right

Tuhund doesn’t just dump data. It generates role-specific, context-aware reports, with help from Ruaa, the built-in AI engine.

• Ruaa identifies what’s relevant to each user based on level, rights, and behavioral trends.

• Reports are automatically scheduled, formatted, and sent — with the right focus for the right person.

• Drill-down is available when details are needed, but summaries drive the top view.

And if someone insists on verifying the data behind the reports — Tuhund always makes the raw data accessible too.

The Bottom Line

If you treat raw data as reporting, you’re forcing your people to waste time interpreting what your systems should already be explaining.

Worse, if your organization fosters a culture of fault-finding over forward movement, you’ll never grow.

A real report tells a story. It supports decisions. It reduces ambiguity. It saves time. It builds trust.

Data is the raw material. Reporting is the value you create from it. Choose wisely.

Email has long been one of the most critical communication tools in business. Yet in many companies, it remains outside the core business system. Quotations are emailed from personal accounts, follow-ups are tracked manually and key conversations get lost across disconnected inboxes. This disconnection causes delays, miscommunication and poor accountability.

Tuhund took a different approach — by integrating email right into the heart of the ERP. Since 2012, Tuhund has included fully functional email as part of its core system. This isn't just email notifications; it's complete, context-sensitive, intelligent email — seamlessly woven into your day-to-day business activities.

Bringing Email to Where the Work Happens

In most systems, you open your inbox and search for emails. In Tuhund, relevant emails are brought to you exactly where they are needed — whether it's a quotation, job order, invoice or follow-up. Email becomes a part of the workflow rather than a separate task.

You no longer need to forward, copy or explain emails outside the system. Every email is linked directly to the business context. This saves time, improves clarity and ensures that nothing gets missed.

AI-Powered Communication

Tuhund's AI engine Ruaa takes this a step further. Ruaa sends follow-ups, reminders and reports automatically based on your business rules. It knows when to send what, to whom and in what tone. From sales teams receiving daily performance summaries to customers getting order updates, Ruaa ensures timely and consistent communication.

Email as Assignable Work — Not Just a Message

In Tuhund, emails are not just messages — they are actionable items. Just like tasks, emails can be assigned to specific users for follow-up or response. This transforms communication into a team activity, not a personal burden.

This feature is especially useful for shared mailboxes or departments like support, procurement or finance which often receive high volumes of incoming messages. Instead of one overloaded inbox, emails can be distributed, tracked and managed like any other work item.

Assigned emails appear in each user's task view, ensuring accountability, delegation and continuity. Replies go out from the system itself, maintaining consistency and allowing managers to monitor communication progress — just like any other workflow.

Continuity and Reassignment Made Simple

If someone leaves your organisation or changes roles, communication history doesn't get lost. In Tuhund, mailboxes are part of the system and can be reassigned instantly. All past emails remain intact and visible to authorised users. This improves continuity, security and audit-readiness.

Connects to Your Existing Mail Server

Tuhund doesn't replace your email server; it works with it. It supports POP, IMAP and SMTP protocols, allowing incoming and outgoing messages to flow through your regular domain — but with the intelligence and context only an ERP system can provide.

Security and Control

Access to email is role-based just like the rest of the system. Communication is visible only to those who are allowed to see it, with complete logs and traceability. Whether for internal audits, customer disputes or compliance checks, every message is where it should be — inside the system.

In Summary

Email inside ERP isn't just about convenience — it's a shift in how communication is handled in an organisation. Tuhund's approach makes communication more efficient, more accountable and far more intelligent. It's no longer something that happens on the side. It becomes part of the system, part of the process and part of the success.

At the onset let me clarify that there can be no stockless delivery of goods. If you are creating a commercial invoice or a delivery note for goods, then the goods have to pass through your inventory. Sometimes they do not physically pass through your stores, but in records they do. In the case of indent sales, you do not create an invoice for the sale amount, but only for your commission amount. There is also no possibility of negative stock physically. Negative stock, in practice, means that you are selling a product before purchasing it. At the very least it implies that, on papers, you are showing goods going out of your inventory before they have come in. In certain cases, it is permitted as an operational compulsion. Therefore, stockless delivery in Tuhund is not a permanent feature but a temporary arrangement helpful in stock entry and consolidation at the time of implementation. It keeps turning off automatically one by one for each product when the stock of that product is entered into the system. For a smaller organization, where inventory is not huge, and for organizations that can provide data of stock in one go, this feature is never turned on.

How does stockless delivery work :

As usual, let us explain this with an actual case as an example. One of our customers is a mid-sized trading and distribution company dealing with automobile spare parts and accessories. They have three companies (legal entities) and a total of nineteen branches across India. Each branch maintains its own inventory and keeps a moderate level of stock. However, the head office, at Bangalore has a huge warehouse with seven floors and a total floor area of 63,000 square feet. Their inventory comprises over three hundred thousand products. Some products, like nuts and bolts, were so huge in number that they could not even be counted. At the time of migration from their old system to Tuhund, there was such a big mismatch between stock on records and physical stock that there was no point entering their data, which was grossly wrong. Had the stock been limited, logic would say to stop work for a day, recount all the stock, enter correct stock in the says and start the operation again. In their case, it would have taken months to do this exercise. Data had to be entered in real-time, which was again a problem. Besides entry, they also needed checks and approval to ensure the precision of data. This was practically not possible. The solution was simple. It was a combination of process change and technology. We started the process by masking the inventory, what we call stockless delivery. In accounting and sales, everything works as usual, but the system does not prevent users from selling items that are not in stock. After accounting an invoice (or even before that if enabled from settings) a delivery note is created. This kind of delivery note takes only the products for which stock is added and verified from the actual inventory. For the rest, it allows processing without stock. 

How does stockless delivery fix the stock mismatch problem?

Suppose at a particular time we add the data for a product A. Till this data was not added, the system allows you and processes all invoices without stock. From this time onwards system removes stock for any sales from the inventory. In a similar way, the system handles your purchases or any other form of stock in as well. Consequently, you get the correct data for each and every item one by one. Once all the data is added, it is simple for the system to reverse compute and add the data that would have been there before stockless delivery. This data is entered in one go by the implementation team and the feature is turned off for good. 

What support does Tuhund provide to make this process fast and simple:

Tuhund provides you the process as well as the tools. Finally, we help you to close the process. For each location, that is each bin, in each shelf, in each rack, in each row, in each floor we let you generate and print QR code. Of course, you can do this in bulk. QR code contains details of the location as well as details of the product if this location has been reserved for a product, which is usually the case. You can scan this code with the Tuhund mobile app (Android or IOS). The app shows you details of the location, what is expected in the bin and what is there in the bin. Initially, there will be no record of what is there in the bin. You can just pick up a piece from the bin, scan the barcode on the same screen, and just enter the quantity in the quantity box. Your job or entry is done. To make sure, everything is correct, the app also shows you pictures of the part. 

In our experience of Eleven years, we have found that there is no bigger pain point than maintaining correct inventory for any organization with medium to large inventory. This is a tried and tested approach that some customers were enthusiastic about and some accepted very reluctantly but in the end, it has always worked. 

Just like rest of the modules in TUHUND, cost center accounting is very simple and you do not have to be a finance expert to work with it. Typically cost center accounting is more basic than management accounting and it does not have to be directly linked to the financial statements. However, some companies do link them. While most of the ERP systems available provide one of the two methods, TUHUND Accounting and Finance module gives you both the options. You may use any one or a combination of both.

Traditional definitions of cost centers use technical jargon while we always try and avoid that. In plain English cost center management has two purposes. On one hand it helps an organization with optimum utilization of funds and to eventually cut down on the costs and on the other it helps determine actual cost of products thus giving an input for the planning of selling price. With TUHUND Accounting and Finance module, at any point of time, users authenticated to work with cost centers can get the reports that can be elaborated and expanded along various axes. You can check the actual transactions, costs under various heads or periodic reports like yearly, quarterly, monthly, weekly and daily. You can even generate reports for groups of cost centers and categorize cost centers. You can even set warnings and triggers.

TUHUND Financial cost accounting reports are generated at run time. That means if you remove a particular account from a cost center, all previous transactions will also be removed as they will shift under new cost center or not considered a cost big enough to be monitored. Therefore, it is not necessary to create cost centers before transactions are made. This is better way of managing cost centers but has a drawback. You will eventually end up creating too many accounts, your trial balance will have more number of records and the schedules for your balance sheets will be longer. Otherwise, this method gives you reports that have legal validity and match cent to cent with your financial reports. If you are into a business where number of customers and vendors is not very large, you should go for this approach. Once again, if this approach suits only a part of the organization like a business entity, few entities, a branch or few branches, you may adopt it for such entities or branches only. Even for a particular branch you can close to adopt a mix of both approaches.

In the management cost accounting approach, cost centers will have to be defined first and accounts attributing to the cost assigned to each cost center. Percentage of transaction under an account for each cost center can be defined in advance and the respective value will be pre-populated at run time. However, the value can be changed. Let me explain that with an example.

Suppose you have a factory defined as a branch under TUHUND and there are two CNC machines in the factory. Your average monthly electric bill has been $1000 so far and you know that out of $1000 machine A consumes power worth $600, machine B consumes $300 and remaining $100 is consumed by lighting and other electric appliances. You have a cost center named cost of running A and other cost center named cost of running B. Besides other accounts attributing to the two cost centers, Electric bill attributes 60% and 30% to the two cost centers respectively. Suppose for a particular month you receive a bill of $2000. When you select the electric expense account under the debit side in the form, all the cost centers affected by the transaction will automatically appear below the transaction. In this case we have defined only two cost centers so only two will appear. These will be pre-populated with values $1200 and $600 respectively. You will be free to correct the values. Suppose you know that you had a big order to deliver and that only machine A had to run 20 hours a day while machine B continued to run only 8 hours a day for the entire month. You will have to change the values accordingly, which in this case will be $1500 and $300 respectively.

Though normally you can create as many cost centers as you like and under as many categories as you like, several modules like Project Management module auto create cost centers automatically. It might sound "not so big" but it actually saves a lot of time.

So for those who say cost accounting is complicated, expensive and unnecessary, there is a news. With TUHUND Accounting and Finance module, cost accounting is neither complicated nor expensive. As far as being necessary or unnecessary is concerned, you can decide that. After all, whether you make a profit or not is a matter of choice. Your Choice! :)